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Arthur Morris

Arthur Morris

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Least-Sandpiper-juvenile-foraging-BPN-_Y9C9411--Jamaica-Bay-Wildlife-Refuge,-Queens,-NY.jpg
  • Arthur Morris
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This juvie Least Sandpiper was photographed on the dreary morning of Denise Ippolito's Jamaica Bay workshop. Canon 800mm f/5.6L IS lens with a 25mm extension tube and the EOS-1D Mark IV. ISO 400. Evaluative metering +1 stop: 1/640 sec. at f/5.6. Lens micro-adjustment -4. Central Sensor AI Servo Rear Focus AF active at the moment of exposure.

Small crop from top, bottom, and front. Lost another bird's feet top left corner.

Don't be shy; all comments welcome.
 
Nice low angle, good feather detail, and a nice pose. Great exposure and sharpness. To my eyes it looks like it needs some CW rotation
 
O.K. I won't be shy :S3:. This is what I strive for! Lovely lighting on the main subject (in spite of dreary am), highlighting details and colors for this sandpiper and providing a highlight in the eye, to engage the viewer. The bird is clearly focused on feeding with an intense posture and raised foot. Just enough detail & color in the foreground to anchor the bird, fading into a blurred bkgd with shades of subtle coloring for interest but no visual competition. Pretty perfect for me.
 
Nice low angle, raised foot and interesting environment, but the head looks over sharpened and even though there is a catch light in the eye it appears rather flat. Do agree with the rotation. The one piece of grass the is touching the raised foot kind of bothers me.

Gary.
 
Wonderful alert pose, with raised foot and water drop a bonus. Great exposure and detail. Bird nicely separated from BG. I also felt it needed a little CW rotation. Sharpening looks just about on the edge - might back off just a tiny bit on the head. All in all, though, a very handsome shot.
 
Arthur Morris said:
Ben and Gary, What are you seeing that indicates the need for CW rotation? Gary, that grass bugs me now that you mentioned it....
Click to expand...

Hi Artie, the LRC appears to be raised higher than the ground under the bird, he appears to be in a valley. If my eyes are seeing correct the water should not pool in a higher area. Has nothing to do with the bird itself. Does that make sense?

Gary.
 
Very nice. I agree with a bit of CW rotation. The raised foot and water droplet are always ingredients that make the image a success!I like the spalsh of green the grass provides. Sharpening is not my forte:e3 but it looks OK to me!
Artie, this is completely off topic but who is member #2!! Just wondering...
Gail
 
It looks like the light was nice and soft.
I like the angle, eye contact, raised foot and the droplet of water on the tip of the beak.
The plumege looks nice and the whites and the rest of the plumage have great details.
The 1/640 s stopped the motion, no blurring of theraised foot which is good IMO.
Great picture, Artie.
 
Hi Art, nice to meet on this forum:S3:. I can only echo the compliments above. My only wish is a bit more DOF to get the birds legs and tail feathers more in focus. The thin plane of focus appears to be at an angle (previously mentioned) away from the angle of the bird. More DOF might have also helped with the need for CW rotation. Bill mentioned sharpening artifacts, I agree.....Just my take. Lovely.:S3:
 
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you captured a great moment, i can see the attitude of the bird, he know you are here watching.Why the primaries and tail are out of focus? is for movement or deep of field?great picture
 
Lovely juvie Least. Love the nice colours on this fella. Techs and processing are of course top notch. My first instinct was also that it needed a bit of CW rotation...the streaking in LRC and faint streaking in the BG all seem to go up from left to right...perhaps just creating an illusion but still worth a try to see if rotation would be good.

Gail, member #2 is Captain James Shadle:S3:
 
Gorgeous bird and excellent pose. Processing looks excellent to me.
It might be an illusion, but it does appear to need CW rotation. I would remove the blade of grass touching the bill.
I had the opportunity to photograph Least Sandpipers for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I don't know why, but the heads appeared over-sharpened straight out of the camera :) Don't know if the plumage has something to do with it.
 
Jay and Raul, Thanks for your comments. Depth-of-field in with super-telephoto lenses is measured in tiny fractions of an inch. Increases in d-o-f that come with going to higher ISOs and smaller apertures are also tiny and are often barely noticeable. In addition, the smaller apertures result in slower shutter speeds which result in more images lost to subject movement.

In light of the above I have--for the past 28 years--been largely working at the wide open aperture, focusing on the bird's eye, and letting the d-o-f fall where it may :S3:. As I have been doing sort of OK I will not be changing gears anytime soon. Do know that there are a very few noted bird photographers who for the most part work at smaller apertures than I do (but most of them work more with small songbirds.... When working at point blank distance a bit of extra d-o-f can help and is possible if the bird remains still for an instant at the moment of exposure.
 
Arthur Morris said:
Jay and Raul, Thanks for your comments. Depth-of-field in with super-telephoto lenses is measured in tiny fractions of an inch. Increases in d-o-f that come with going to higher ISOs and smaller apertures are also tiny and are often barely noticeable. In addition, the smaller apertures result in slower shutter speeds which result in more images lost to subject movement.

In light of the above I have--for the past 28 years--been largely working at the wide open aperture, focusing on the bird's eye, and letting the d-o-f fall where it may :S3:. As I have been doing sort of OK I will not be changing gears anytime soon. Do know that there are a very few noted bird photographers who for the most part work at smaller apertures than I do (but most of them work more with small songbirds.... When working at point blank distance a bit of extra d-o-f can help and is possible if the bird remains still for an instant at the moment of exposure.
Click to expand...

Since technology has improved significantly in the last 28 years I personally think shooting wide open is not the way to go and I try to avoid it as much as I can. Firstly even with your Canon 800 f5.6 on the Mark IV when your subject is 10 meters away, DOF will be 4cm when shooting at f5.6 and 5cm when shotting at f8. The extra 1cm is quite significant when photographing such small birds. In this case pushing iso from 400 to 800 could have given you the extra light to go f8 instead of f5.6 and gain some more DOF to include the tail. Going f10 could have given you 7cm DOF from the same distance !!
Secondly, most long lenses are sharper at f8 than at f5.6. I would highly recommend anyone to avoid shooting wide open if possible especially when using teleconverters as it would help sharpness significantly and improve the DOF.
Just my 2 cents.:w3
 
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